My Dear Sir:—

If not a matter of strict duty, I choose to regard it as a proper thing to explain my movements to you. A few days after the late Presidential election, I went south with my son Edmund, about whose condition as to health I had become alarmed, and am still very solicitous. In the first week of February, he took a steamer for some of the West India Islands, and I concluded it to be my duty to return to my deserted family at Albany. I arrived at Richmond, Virginia, about the 20th of February, with a disposition to pass on to the North without going through Washington. As I had never done anything at that place for which I ought to be ashamed (or rather I thought I had not), it appeared to me it would be cowardly to run around or through it. I was very much inclined to go and perchance to stop there a few days. The doubts which distracted me in regard to my course were almost entirely removed by a letter from a person whom I had never seen, suggesting that it might be well for me to be in Washington about the 20th ult. On my appearance there a rumor suddenly arose that I was certainly to be one of the new cabinet, and the same liberty was taken with the names of several other persons. I have heard in an unauthentic way that you had been wise enough to take precautions against such a use of your name. It is now generally believed here, and I believe it myself, that I may be in the cabinet of the incoming administration, and (to confess all) I have been weak enough to make up my mind to accept a seat if offered one in it. Should it be the place you filled with so much ability, I may be rash enough not to decline it. I have told you all; here I am and here I am likely to be, for a brief period at least.

I do not think you will approve of what I have done. I hope you will not severely censure me, or the judgment which will put me where I expect to be. If it is an error, either on my part or that of another, there are some circumstances to excuse it, but I have not time to present them in detail.

I hope to have a frank and free intercourse with you. I will go further, I hope to have—what I know I shall much need—the aid in some emergencies of your greater experience and better knowledge. It will give me sincere pleasure to hear from you.

Yours truly,

W. L. Marcy.

On the 30th of March (1853), the President wrote to Mr. Buchanan and requested him to accept the mission to England. In his reply, Mr. Buchanan postponed a final answer, and what ensued appears from the following detailed account, which remains in his hand-writing.

Although gratified with this offer, I felt great reluctance in accepting it. Having consulted several friends, in whose judgment I have confidence, they all advised me to accept it, with a single exception (James L. Reynolds). I left Lancaster for Washington on Thursday, 7th April, wholly undecided as to my course. On Friday morning (8th April) I called upon the President, who invited me to dine with him “en famille” that day. The only strangers at the table were Mr. John Slidell and Mr. O’Conor. After the dinner was over the President invited me up to the library, where we held the following conversation:

I commenced by expressing to him my warm and grateful acknowledgments for the offer of this most important mission, and said I should feel myself under the same obligations to him whether it was accepted or declined; that at my age, and contented and happy as I was at home, I felt no disposition to change my position, and again to subject myself to the ceremonious etiquette and round of gaiety required from a minister at a foreign court.

Here the President interrupted me and said: “If this had been my only purpose in sending you abroad, I should never have offered you the mission. You know very well that we have several important questions to settle with England, and it is my intention that you shall settle them all in London. The country expects and requires your services as minister to London. You have had no competitor for this place, and when I presented your name to the cabinet they were unanimous. I think that under these circumstances I have a right to ask you to accept the mission.”